Certainly looks like it has the potential to be something I could really love.... but then again so did Mugen Souls.

For what it's worth, Mugen Souls Z, so far, seems to fix/smooth over the mistakes Mugen Souls made. I'm enjoying that one a lot more.

As for Eiyuu Senki, I'm not familiar with Fruit Bat's localization work. All I know is what I read from Andrew's 99 Spirits review and he said they localized it very well. So that's promising at least, that the game in the hands of a competent localizer and not something like O~3 Entertainment's botched translation of Chaos Wars for PS2.

Certainly looks like it has the potential to be something I could really love.... but then again so did Mugen Souls.

For what it's worth, Mugen Souls Z, so far, seems to fix/smooth over the mistakes Mugen Souls made. I'm enjoying that one a lot more.

As for Eiyuu Senki, I'm not familiar with Fruit Bat's localization work. All I know is what I read from Andrew's 99 Spirits review and he said they localized it very well. So that's promising at least, that the game in the hands of a competent localizer and not something like O~3 Entertainment's botched translation of Chaos Wars for PS2.

I actually just got through reading your preview report on Z, Din. Good stuff.

I am real happy to hear Compile Hearts tightened things up. I still firmly believe they will have an utter stroke of JRPG-Awesome-ness someday and perhaps that day is drawing near.

However, even if it were the Compile Hearts title I have been waiting all of the PS3/360 era for I don't know if I can't play it right now. I just simply am burnt out on the formula ATM. Sometime after Disgaea D2 I just lost the taste for that NIS flavor, be it a Nippon Ichi gig or CH/Idea Factory. Something akin to over-eating your favorite food even after you've had your fill of it you might say.

I need me some darker toned, more thought provoking material before I return to the light hearted anime fair. I still have Neptunia Victory and Guided Fate paradox in my back pocket as well.... thing is, between NIS and Namco Bandai for the past year or two I reallly need some SMT, Drakengard, SHadow Hearts, Lost Odyssey and maybe even Dark Souls in my life right now.

EDIT: I'm even having a real hard time getting through the last stretch of Atelier E&L which I was really looking forward too. This happened to me before and it was Persona 2 (per your suggestion if I recall Din) that proved the perfect fit for me.

« Last Edit: May 17, 2014, 04:28:30 PM by Klyde Chroma »

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In this world is the destiny of mankind controlled by some transcedental entity or law? is it like the hand of god hovering above? Perhaps Man has no control even over his own will…

Damn, now I gotta read that Preview since I've been working hard to resist the temptation to get Mugen Souls...

EDIT: and I did! But I don't know, I've been put off from the first game in large part because of its confusing amount of systems. Maybe a younger me would've enjoyed the challenge of learning a complex game, but I don't know if I have the patience for that anymore. Even if it turns out really good in the end, I probably might wait for a severe price drop before I pick it up.

As with Agarest Wars 2, Mugen Souls Z is learning from its past mistakes. Are they perfect? Nope. Agarest 2 still suffered from severe difficulty spikes and repetitive grinding. And Mugen Souls Z could still potentially suffer from some stuff that wasn't quite smoothed over. A common complaint of Compile Heart games is that they're amusing at first, but drag out too long; kinda like trying to use one smear of peanut butter for an entire loaf of bread, so I'm watching out for taht. Agarest 2 adn Mugen Z are certainly not Editor's Choice "valedictorian" material, but potentially "most improved student" material. They're a far cry from the drek that !F/Compile Heart used to be. Kinda like how Hyundai cars were tin cans back in the 80s and are now some of the best made, most reliable cars on the road.

As for Eiyuu Senki, I'm again glad to read that Fruit Bat is a good localizer, though I'm curious if the sanitizing of its eroge components hinders the storyline or can it survive without them?

Some of those games stuff those scenes in almost at random. It's why the anime adaptations don't tend to have any noticeable missing elements in the plots, because excising them doesn't do anything. This isn't always the case, as the scene with the CG dragon in the first Fate/Stay Night anime will tell you.

Also, the clean version for consoles is a common enough phenomenon that I'm guessing any company with big enough ambitions will intentionally design the game so the sex scenes can easily be removed without hurting anything.

As with Agarest Wars 2, Mugen Souls Z is learning from its past mistakes. Are they perfect? Nope. Agarest 2 still suffered from severe difficulty spikes and repetitive grinding. And Mugen Souls Z could still potentially suffer from some stuff that wasn't quite smoothed over. A common complaint of Compile Heart games is that they're amusing at first, but drag out too long; kinda like trying to use one smear of peanut butter for an entire loaf of bread, so I'm watching out for taht. Agarest 2 adn Mugen Z are certainly not Editor's Choice "valedictorian" material, but potentially "most improved student" material. They're a far cry from the drek that !F/Compile Heart used to be. Kinda like how Hyundai cars were tin cans back in the 80s and are now some of the best made, most reliable cars on the road.

As for Eiyuu Senki, I'm again glad to read that Fruit Bat is a good localizer, though I'm curious if the sanitizing of its eroge components hinders the storyline or can it survive without them?

Agarest 2 may very well be my favorite game I did not finish! LoL

It was for the very reasons you touched upon here. Difficulty spikes and length one could not foresee. The first stretch of that game is so easy you'd swear that it is ok for you to not quite get it. However, if you up the difficulty, 25-30 hours in and you are blindsided with such longwinded battles it leaves you wishing you played on "easy" if for no other reason than to speed things along.

Thing was, up until it became brutally hard and a battle of trying to stay interested in the wake of the repetition, it was awesome to me.

That is why I am SURE CH/Idea Factory will have a real winner on their hands someday. They have, in their various titles, excelled and dazzled me in most respects.... sadly however none of these qualities are consistently present in a single title as of yet, and nearly all their excellent efforts are overshadowed by more game-breaking flaws that completely snuff out the fun factor in spite of what each game does right.

I have been fan for years and support these weird niche games but for the time being I need a break.

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In this world is the destiny of mankind controlled by some transcedental entity or law? is it like the hand of god hovering above? Perhaps Man has no control even over his own will…

Damn, now I gotta read that Preview since I've been working hard to resist the temptation to get Mugen Souls...

EDIT: and I did! But I don't know, I've been put off from the first game in large part because of its confusing amount of systems. Maybe a younger me would've enjoyed the challenge of learning a complex game, but I don't know if I have the patience for that anymore. Even if it turns out really good in the end, I probably might wait for a severe price drop before I pick it up.

The original Mugen Souls you only need to know one series of things. All the rest of the systems are negligible.

-Custom characters are pretty rubbish, ignore them unless you want a challenge.-Fail Moe Kills until the enemy's pissed off bar is 100% full.-Use an aerial attack with the minimum most power to bounce it into an airborne crystal. (This triggers Fever mode and builds up your combo meter through the roof; giving you a ton of XP and Cash per battle in addition to the rage-mode bonus.)-Rinse/repeat until enemy is dead.-Rinse/repeat with minimal (for this style of game) grinding to beat 99.9% of Mugen Souls while ignoring pretty much every other subsystem.

There's literally only one battle in the game you have to dance around the system because without doing things in a specific order the bosses are designed unkillable and will go Baal-level hard on you if you brute force them. I don't recall what that order is but it's not that hard to figure out.

Now if you want to see the True Ending you'll have to study the systems a bit more (aka: Pull up a Moe Kill cheat sheet) and probably run through New Game+. But you can beat Mugen Souls without needing to know more then how to attack and equip attack skills.

I like to know what I'm doing when I play a game, and call me crazy, but I'm not about to call a game that doesn't make full use of its systems good. Kinda why I hate FF6, KH2, Golden Sun, and other games where major aspects can feel superfluous. Why should I play a game where I have to learn a bunch of stuff that doesn't mean anything? Why should I play a game where the designers didn't even put in enough care to make sure the different aspects of a game work together? I can't stand games where I'm just as well off, if not more well off if I don't put in the effort to learn the ins and outs of a game.

I may doubt my patience to handle a complex game, but I know I don't have the patience for a poorly-made game.

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“MY NAME IS POKEY THE PENGUIN I LOVE CHESS!! IT IS LIKE BALLET ONLY WITH MORE EXPLOSIONS!”I Draw Stuff Sometimes

I can't stand games where I'm just as well off, if not more well off if I don't put in the effort to learn the ins and outs of a game.

Well put sir, I concur. I think the closest I felt a CH title has come to making the most of its various mechanics has been the latter Neptunia titles. While crafting items seemed damn near optional it never really felt obtuse or overwhelming. Well, I can't really speak for V (didn't play through it) but MK2 made exploring and understanding the various mechanics functionally worthwhile.

One useless mechanic I LOVED in Neptunia was the ability to photoshop yourself a custom palette for your transformation outfit. While not functionally necessary to the game at all, personally, I thoroughly enjoyed sporting a Rei Ayanami plug suit whilst transformed in battle most of the time.

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In this world is the destiny of mankind controlled by some transcedental entity or law? is it like the hand of god hovering above? Perhaps Man has no control even over his own will…

While I can agree with the sentiment of personal tastes and what not, upon thinking about it doesn't that (learning mechanics that have no real practical purpose aside from padding) apply to pretty much almost every RPG out there?

Just to tick off some of the more beloved titles off the top of my head.

Grandia (any) - Magic is a useless system for flash more than substance. You can ignore it in lieu of nothing but Combo/Counters/Skills.Final Fantasy Tactics - Pick a class you like, ignore the rest of the lot, it works. Can also completely ignore Brave/Faith mechanics and the Zodiac systems.Disgaea - Does anyone ever use Tower Attacks or bother with Geo Puzzles outside of rare/forced instances? Or raising any other stat besides Attack?Final Fantasy 8 - The entire leveling system.Persona 4 - Gardening and items in general (SP is too plentiful and unless you're running a no healer party you virtually never need this option)

I mean these are just brief little nitpicks to throw some examples out. But if I wanted actually sit down and tear apart just about any title I could very likely make decent arguments for there being superfluous systems that mean nothing (in terms of allowing a quick/dirty playthrough) in the same vein as Mugen Souls. Not so much trying to disagree as it was a thought that came to mind.